Geographies of remigration in Ecuador

Duration: 2008 - 2009

Bickhoff Stiftung, research project in cooperation with Miriam Stolz, University of Passau

Thousands of Ecuadorians migrated to Spain during and after the national crisis in Ecuador at the end of the 1990s, which has now resulted in Ecuadorians being the second largest group of migrants in Spain. For a long time return was not part of the migration projects. The financial crisis in 2008-2009, however, can be seen as a turning point in regard to return migration. Initiated by the labour market crisis and promoted by the return plans of both the Spanish and the Ecuadorian government, Ecuador documents an increasing number of return migrants. As the migration experiences are highly gendered, the article addresses the remigration experiences of Ecuadorian women from a gender perspective. By doing so, the explorative study contributes through its empirical findings to debates around gender and (re)migration and lays ground for critically questioning the assumptions of debates around remigration and development.